He trailed off. He didn’t want to say the word alive. And not just because it seemed so silly, putting that on an official record, but also because, alone in his cabin, it suddenly felt like the ship was listening. He didn’t want it to hear him.
He shook his head. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m not making a lot of sense. I’ll pick this up tomorrow.”
* * *
—
He was yanked from a depthless slumber by a low bleating. He sat up, groggy. The walls glowed purple. He pulled on his film and saw:
□ CORE #0127 SELF-CHECK FAILED (ENG-6)
It was the kind of thing that used to appear back when he had puzzles. He fitted his survival core, grabbed his belt and tools, and headed for K Deck.
Jackson popped into his ear, asking what was happening. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just woke.” He reached the ladder and spun the hatch.
“We’ve been engaging hostiles,” Jackson said, “for the last three hours.”
“What? While I was sleeping?” That couldn’t be right. He wouldn’t have slept through the klaxon. If it was met with no response, it would become progressively louder. At a certain point, the light would become bright enough to sear through his eyelids.
“There was no call to station. I’m only finding out about it now.”
The ladder was mechanized but he let himself slide as well, for additional speed. A small dark object struck his foot and blurred past his face. “What—”
“You all right?”
He gripped the ladder and punched a tactile button to make it stop descending. “There’s something in the ladder shaft.”
Beanfield: “Is this an engagement?”
Jackson: “Unclear. Attend station until we know. Intel, what’s going on?”
He peered past his boots. There was movement down there. Multiple dark shapes. “It’s full of crabs.”
“What are they doing?”
“I don’t know.” He began to descend manually, one rung at a time. He was focused on what was happening below and didn’t notice that more crabs were descending from above until they scuttled past him. “God, shit!”
“Intel?”
“Nothing. Sorry. It’s fine. More crabs. They’re going the same way I am.”
“Toward Eng-6?”
That would make sense. If there was a fault, the ship would call crabs to it. “I think so.”
“Get down there, please,” Jackson said. “I want eyes.”
He resumed his descent. “If we’ve been fighting for three hours, how many hostiles was that?”
“Not many. Two or three hundred. From what I’m seeing, it wasn’t one large engagement but a dozen or so small ones.”
“Three hundred salamanders from twelve engagements?” That was hardly any. They had never encountered so few at once; no one had. “From how many hives?”
“One. And that was in the early stages of construction. No soldiers.”
“So, what, they just roam around in space now?”
“Apparently,” said Jackson. “This deep in VZ, I guess they do.”
“Or they’ve evolved new tactics,” he said, and stepped on a crab. He kicked it off the ladder and continued. “I’m almost at K Deck. There are crabs everywhere.”
“At station,” said Beanfield. “Life, checking in.”
He wondered about Anders. He didn’t know whether Anders had actually been returned to confinement. Then his boots found solid ground and there were so many crabs he couldn’t move without treading on them. The air was filled with the clicking and chittering of their movement. “Lights,” he said, because it was dark, and the ship didn’t seem to have registered his arrival. The walls glowed yellow, then began to cycle purple, as they had above. “Holy shit.”
“What is it?”
The corridor was full of crabs. They carpeted every surface, walls, ceiling, flowing like a tide toward Eng-6, swarming over each other. They bubbled from the ladder shaft and swept by, submerging his boots. “Got a buttload of crabs here.”
“Can you see Eng-6?”
“Not yet.” He began to wade through the crabs.
“Intel, I’m transferring control of the AI kill switch to Command.”
“Ah,” he said, “why?”
“Because I’m